


brave the horizon

by Riana1



Category: Brave (2012), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, Gen, Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eret sees smoke rising in the south, a black plume spiraling out against the vast blue sky and blunted shores of Alba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	brave the horizon

**Author's Note:**

> For http://songofafreeheart.tumblr.com/ I ain't dead yet and you are a joy to this world.

1\. Eret sees smoke rising in the south, a black plume spiraling out against the vast blue sky and blunted shores of Alba (Caledonia, mutters Teeny under his breath) and smiles. He is Eret, son of Eret, but his mother raised no fool.

There is opportunity there in that black.

That was dragon-fire.

2\. He is able to skin the beast at least. A Monstrous Nightmare probably driven this far south by the same storm that drove his ship into these waters, but an unlucky one at that. The scars at the base of the neck were ulcerated and ugly. The damned beast must have been half-mad, Eret pauses as the wailing of the funeral bag pipes begin, but not as unlucky as Dunbroch.

The castle had only half-burned when the dragon landed, the stonework blacken but unbroken. The castle inhabitants were not as fortunate. What the fire didn't burn when the roof collapsed, the smoke suffocated, buoyed by the the blockade of the damned beast's own body when a lucky arrow shot entered the eye and brain and killed the damned dragon.

Eret had seem his share of hardship but the laying out of those three small bodies- he catches the muttering of Lord Dingwall about the 'kingship' and steps off the dragon head to yell at Ugg, "Bring the knives!"

Before they bring theirs.

3\. The lad is on fire.

A head full of sunset and eyes to match: Eret doubts the boy had seen any sleep in the last few days. High-strung as the bow in his hands- Eret had seen greed and Eret had seen grief. The former might to be turned to profit if pressed but dragon-deaths made men go mad.

One taste of Drago was enough.

"We hunt dragons, lad, trap them, and kill them if the price is right. Vengeance has no place on my ship. Go home before you hurt yourself."

He barely completes his dismissal before there is an arrow humming beneath his nose, fist-deep into the mast at three hundred paces from the shore. "I want to kill dragons, I /can/ kill dragons," the boy calls out, high and sweet. "Or not if you tell me to, but I have no home, not here, not any more."

There are the pleading eyes of Ugg, the sharp shape of the boy's back, but Eret thinks of knives. Of the curdling sorrow in Dunbroch and sweet-sour smell of war in the air, how the competition for the hand of a princess and competition for a throne came down to a certain manner of niceties at dinner before the knives came out.

Eret wanted out of Alba before then.

If he got a bag of silver and sure-handed archer out of the deal, well, he could always dump the boy in Corona if need be.

4\. The lad keeps to himself, which Eret finds impressive on a ship this size, but he is a quick study, fierce on the facts of dragon hunting and rather feckless on Wash Day.

Even Ugg can't get the boy out of his woolens, so Eret doesn't even try. Horizons heal all wounds, either in distances or days, as his grandda Eret would say, so Eret just tosses more sea water on the deck and pull off his jerkin.

Watching the boy turn as red as his hair is amusing enough on its own.

5.Three weeks in and three hundred leagues away, Eret son of Eret finds out that Mairead is Merida.

His mother would not be proud of this fact, nor that he locks the girl (princess) in the main cabin and threaten to turn starboard and bring her back to her kingdom.

Teeny manages to disarm the girl before she guts Eret with his own knife.

He is very proud of this (they had been working on that maneuver for a few days).

Eret less so.

6\. "I dinna want to be wed so I went to a witch," she whispers, "then the dragon came and they all died."

Eret says nothing, there is nothing to be said. Instead he tells Teeny to finish cutting down that extra ice bear coat.

She will need it in the north.

7\. She is better with the arbalest than anyone.

8\. Bludvist burns him. This fact does not alarm Eret has much as it should (empty traps alarm him, disabled traps worry him) but the sight of Ugg holding a kicking and cursing Merida back with both arms, her hair snarling out of her braid like spits of fire, has his heart in his throat.

Shite, he thinks, then she is ordering the men to bring up the aloe and poppy milk and soaking the clean rags in cold water, and pressing them to his bare chest with her bare hands.

I am so very screwed.

9\. The fort is a wreck of wood and frozen water, the dragons freed, and Drago to be paid off- but none of that matters.

Nothing matters, except for the broken mask at his feet and the broken bow in his hands. He had the witch dead to rights, an axe in his hand, and her pinned to the ground when the scream of 'mother' hit him.

Eret paused.

And it costed him everything. The damned Stormcutter swooped between them, stealing away the witch, stealing Merida.

"Teeny, forget the nets, get the arrows. We are going hunting."

10\. The sun slips over the horizon, forge-bright and forever-blue, but nothing can compare to the sheer giddy joy in Merida's voice when she goads her Scuttleclaw to go down, down, and straight at the back of Ruffnut's head.

Again.

Astrid tells him to never mind. Valka talks about 'territorial displays' (Eret isn't very sure where he stands with her- almost impaling someone tends to dampen their enthusiasm for small talk but Valka is quite cheerful for a crazy, dragon recluse, and finds Merida to be an absolute delight so Eret takes it as wash over all).

He naturally ignores every word out of Hiccup's mouth about women.

Stoick the Vast brought him aside, leaning his good leg (his burns are still healing on other one) and places a heavy arm on Eret's shoulder. "Lad, if I have learn anything about courtship, let her come to you in her own time. Make your interest known, but you can't rush her. Any woman worth her salt will not be harried or hurried to the marriage bed until she is good and ready. It is good practice for when you're wedded."

Eret has time now- to get use to wrangling dragons rather than trapping them, to have a true home to call to port, and learning to fly properly takes up enough of his current future.

Ruffnut manages not to lose her helmet but Tuffnut isn't so lucky. Eret gaffs when the twins barely manage to save it from careening into the ocean without following in themselves.

"You like what you see, huh?"

He looks up and to this right as Merida slowly swoops over him, the wild mass of her hair blending into the fading fire of the sunset and her face flushed with a giant grin.

"Can't say I don't love the view."

They are mere wing beats apart, their dragons taking in the same steady stride, and Eret is close enough to catch the hitch in her exhale and the widening of her eyes.

He grins, they have time, world enough, and horizons to match.


End file.
